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head-to-head: kat*| m a n n i n g C nick courtnen
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He w a s u s e d t o crying, "Five r o u n d s , r a p i d ! " She
t o o k all her clothes off f o r a girlie magazine. Stephen
O ' B r i e n t i m e - t r a v e l s b a c k t o a n a g e w h e n Jon P e r t w e e
was D o c t o r W h o a n d Katy M a n n i n g a n d Nicholas
Courtney h e l p e d protect Earth from alien invasions.
Katy Manning, more than happy to talk with her clothes on.
Af Af AmKm^m^ o r "' s a ^ s Nicholas effervescence and Nick Courtney, tired and
mm ^mt O^—W^r Courtney,
aka worn out after a long day's filming, is finding it
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Brigadiei Lethbridge- difficult to keep up.
"I rang Nick when I got back and I said to
^ ^ B ^ ^ Who. He's describing him, 'You can tell I've decided I'm coming
his first impression of Katy Manning: "I remem- home because I'm calling you!'" Manning
ber saying, 'I'm glad she's joined the show!'"
enthuses. "Apart from my direct family, like my
"I was exactly the same!" she replies, daughter and my mother, Nick was the first
remembering her co-star from when he was person I rang. I needed to see my Nick."
young and had a full head of hair. "I thought,
'I'll 'ave some of that!'"
Manning joined Doctor Who in 1971 as the D u m b e d d o w n
scatty and pixie-like Jo Grant, joining Jon Manning joined the programme after it had
Pertwee and the crack fighting force UNIT experimented with employing Liz Shaw, a
during what was probably the show's most companion on an intellectual par with the
popular period.
Doctor. Jo, on the other hand, was a companion
in the conventional mould, all twisted ankles
and tea-making skills.
Together again
"In my first episode the Doctor says, T
The two of them were recently reunited on the thought you had a science degree', and she
set of Lust In Space, an independently says, 'I never said I passed'," Manning grins. "I
produced video putting Doctor Who on trial for think what Jo brought was that she didn't have
sexism of the strongest order. A long spell in LA any academia but - boy! - was she a loyal little
Katy Manning and Nicholas Courtney get reacquainted. has only heightened Manning's natural soul. She would give up her life for the Doctor,
F T
&
the Brig, anybody! That was
what was so nice about her. She
was always ready to run in and
say, T don't know what I'm doing
but if you're going to hurt anybody, make it me!' That's one
thing Jo and I have in common our loyalty."
"Absolutely!" Courtney bellows
suddenly, warming to the
theme. "There was one time
when the Doctor was going to
be killed by this huge Azal thing
and Katy shouted, 'No, me first,
kill me first!"
And if Manning had been the
companion instead of Jo Grant?
"I'd have said, 'Take the
Doctor!'" the actress laughs.
A n e w face
When Manning joined the show,
Manning discovers the easiest way to defeat the daleks is to titillate them. most of the cast were already
well-established but despite this, they all made
a concerted effort to welcome the new girl and
make her a part of the team.
"They were absolutely amazing! Fabulous!"
she recalls. "You see, I was this demented, naive
person who came into their lives very
unexpectedly because I hadn't been queuing
up for auditions. It was very sudden wasn't it,
darling?"
Courtney nods in agreement.
"I put her straight on my knee and fondled
her!" he responds.
"And we've done the same ever since!"
Manning guffaws, dirtily.
Fondling friends
"We were a very touchy little team" she says
naughtily. "We never really stopped laughing
and giggling. We were a great team because we
cared about everything - not just the day-to-day
work, but everything. They were my
friends in the show, but they were also XT
people I loved dearly outside the show. ( \
4 ?
head-to-head: katn m a n n i n q 4 nick
courtneq
humour might have slightly backfired on me."
Manning confesses, "It seemed like a really
funny idea at the time. I'll be honest with you
though - they were never meant to come out. I
was in this play the night it was all exposed
playing this nice Jewish girl who'd got
pregnant—"
"—Pregnant by the Dalek!" Courtney
interjects, laughing.
Trembling hands
"You remember Bill Grundy?" Manning says,
referring to the infamous TV host sacked from
the Today programme in 1976 for inciting the
Sex Pistols on a cosy ITV teatime show. "He was
a notorious woman-hater. He came up to me
and said, T believe you take your clothes off in
the show tonight.'
"I said, 'It's a bit hard to get pregnant in a
boiler suit', and as I lit my cigarette - somewhat
nervously because I'd heard Bill was going to
be a complete arsehole to me - [Manning
pauses, her hands trembling in demonstration
mode] - and I set fire to this tissue. I thought,
well, the camera's not on me and I'm not talking, so I tried to put this tissue out which I
instantly dropped on the floor, and as I sat up
on this really badly-made Swedish chair I
keeled over and ended up with my head right
in his crotch!"
Was Courtney ever offered a similar genitalexposing photo shoot?
"Not really, no." He responds, perhaps only
now contemplating the lost possibilities.
"I think you should have been on the other
side of the Dalek!" Manning chimes in, cheekily.
"Yes, I should have been!"
The Brigadier looks back wistfully on the days before enemies of the state boasted tentacles and superior firepower.
if We were always in these awful conditions
A in freezing cold quarry pits having a
J l fabulous time. We would all keep each
other warm and tell each other stories!"
"Dear Benton..." Courtney chimes in with
a wistful air, remembering his loyal Sergeant
from the era.
"Ah, the Boy! The Boy!" she responds, rather
bemusingly.
"We were a family." says Courtney.
"We were all very different actually,"
Manning remarks. "But it was like the magic
ingredients."
Did the UNIT team socialise much off-set?
"I'd lead them astray to the pub. We
socialised a lot." Courtney grins.
Stripping off
In the mid-70s, Manning managed to both
shock and delight the nation when she stripped
off for a well-publicised photo shoot with an
ill-advised pair of spangly knee boots and a
sexually excited Dalek. What was Nick
Courtney'sfirstreaction?
"Cor!"
"I think my somewhat twisted sense of
Moving on
Manning left Who in 1973 after three seasons,
heading off into the sunset with long-haired
eco-hippy Professor Cliff Jones. Why then?
The Brigadier pretends to be interested in one of the Doctor's scientific theories while secretly thinking about killing aliens.
"You're not the Master!" cried the Doctor. "You're Old Man
Jenkins from the abandoned mine!"
"It was time," she says simply. "It was also
only my second job in the business. When
you're doing a show like Doctor Who you've got
to have new things all the time. It's easier to do
it with the girl than with anybody else. You can't
keep changing the Doctor and of course the
Brig was absolutely established. It was time three years is really about it."
\
A Farewell to Arms
When Tom Baker and a new production team
came on board, Who's Earth-bound nature was
gradually phased out, meaning UNIT and the
Brigadier were no longer needed.
"I think it was missed." Manning argues.
"In retrospect, it didn't matter that I went
away for a little bit out of the programme. It
gave me a chance to get back into the theatre,"
says Courtney in turn.
With Who's 20th anniversary in 1983 came
'The Five Doctors', an ambitiously staged
Jo wonders if now is the time to scream loudly - it's not the monsters who frighten her, but the hideous incidental music.
fl
A S
o v e r
i s a c
a n o
o n
D H I S
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reunion of most of the ex-Doctors and
companions. Notably absent by Jon Pertwee's
side was Manning.
"I was working," she shrugs. "Treading the
boards on the other side of the world. I would
have come back but I really couldn't leave what
I was doing."
Doing the rounds
Now Manning is becoming a British resident
again, she seems keen to do the fan convention
circuit, even if it's in small doses.
"When I do them, I want them to be worth
doing," she argues. "I know you don't believe it,
but I'm really terribly shy. There's a side of me
which Nick knows about, but it's not what you
see. Who would want to see me if I was
constantly dull and boring and monosyllabic?
m a n e
U I I D H
m y
m
S
M
m
S
H I
You have to have a persona to go out and do
that otherwise people are going to fall asleep.
It's work and you've got to treat it as that.
"Now I'm back here I'd like to do a few
because of all the people that have been so
supportive of the show. I know it was recently
voted as one of the top ten best television
programmes ever in some paper. I'd just like to
put a little bit back."
Moving with the times
What would Jo be doing now?
"It's a bit of a worry, isn't it, darling!"
Manning says, laughing as only hardened
smokers can. "She'd of probably have found lots
to do with animals and things."
And what's the Brig up to now?
"He's writing his memoirs at the moment,"
H
G H a i r
H I S
i
H e e i e o
G P O G G H ! "
Courtney nods sagely, with a subtlety not
unknown to major Hollywood stars. "We
thought the title was going to be Five Rounds
Rapid, but my wife's come up with a better
title..." He suddenly goes silent, refusing to
elaborate further.
And what is Manning going to be up to now
she's back in Blighty?
"I'm going to be reading Nick's book!"
she says, enthusiastically. "And then I'm
going to serialise it on the radio!"
\
The Jon Pertwee-era of Doctor Who isn't
currently showing on UK television.
Selected videos, such as 'The Green
Death' Collector's Edition and 'Frontier in
Space' are, however, available. Turn to
page 87 if you have trouble finding them.